E-books and e-publishing by Samuel Vaknin (summer reading list txt) 📖

Given the crisis, it’s

inexcusable.

 

Q: What is Free Online Scholarship and how can it be

reconciled with rights to intellectual property? Can the

current revenue models of publishers be replaced with viable

alternative revenue models - and, if yes, which are they? What

the risks of abuse of FOS? Is FOS an instance of a larger

“free content” movement (Napster, etc.)? If so, can Free

Online Content principles be applied to music, books, and

film. for instance?

 

A: Free online scholarship is scientific and scholarly

literature which is made available free of charge on the

internet. The FOS movement singles out this body of

literature not because it is useful (because other kinds of

literature are useful too), but because it has the relevant

peculiarity that its authors don’t expect to be paid. If

authors want to make money from their works, we don’t

criticize or pressure them. But when authors consent to do

without royalties, then there’s no reason not to make their

writings freely available on the internet. When the

literature is as useful as research articles are, then free

online access is a public good worth every effort to realize.

 

Once we understand that the scope of the FOS movement is

limited to works that authors consent to give away, or to

publish without payment, then we can understand why this

movement is completely compatible with intellectual property

rights. When authors write articles, they are the copyright

holders. A growing number of journals will use their peer

review process to vet and validate articles, and ultimately

publish them, without demanding that authors give up copyright

—and we hope to launch more journals with this enlightened

policy. If the authors of peer-reviewed articles holds the

copyright to them, then they have the right to decide whether

to make access free or restricted. If they choose to make it

free and open, that is their right, not an infringement of

their right. The FOS movement is about using copyright to

authorize free and open access, not about piracy that creates

free access without the consent of the copyright holder.

 

This movement has nothing interesting in common with the

movement created by Napster. The all-important difference is

that researchers give away their journal articles and

musicians don’t give away their music. We work entirely

within the consent of the copyright holder.

 

Q: The major missing element seems to be

perceived respectability. But there are others. No agreed upon

content or knowledge classification method has emerged. Some

web sites (such as Suite101) use the Dewey decimal system.

Others invented and implemented systems of their making.

Additionally, one click publishing technology (such as

Webseed’s or Blogger’s) came to be identified strictly with

non-scholarly material: personal reminiscences,

correspondence, articles, and news. Above all, no feasible

alternative revenue models seem to have emerged.

 

A: Regarding respectability: There is a growing number of

free online peer-reviewed journals, and growing number of

highly respected academics willing to serve on their editorial

boards. As measured by impact (citations) or informal

prestige, some online journals surpass many print journals.

It’s true that print journals still have greater impact and

prestige than online journals, but only if we average the two

classes. The factors that create respectability are medium-independent, and can easily belong to online journals. A

growing number of online journals are as respectable as any

print journal. BMJ (formerly called the British Medical

Journal) is eminently respectable. It offers 100% of its

print copy online free of charge. There are other examples in

every field.

 

My view is that the lack of an agreed upon classification

method is not a problem. That’s a long conversation. But

it’s not true that the need for such a classification method

is widely felt. Indexing and organization are desirable, but

there is free and priced software to index and organize any

online content in any way that users want. This software will

only get better as time goes on.

 

It’s not true that no feasible alternative revenue models have

emerged. FOS doesn’t depend on volunteer labor. The general

revenue model is to pay for outgoing articles (dissemination)

rather than incoming articles (access). There are many

variations on the theme, depending on who pays. But it’s

perfectly feasible to regard the costs of dissemination as

part of the cost of research, to be paid by the grant that

funds the research —for example. (This is just one variation

on the theme.) BioMed Central is a for-profit provider of

FOS implementing one variation on this theme.

 

In a general introduction to the FOS movement I’m writing for

another journal, I’m putting it this way. The economic

feasibility of FOS is no more mysterious than the economic

feasibility of Public TV. Donors pay the costs of

dissemination so that it will be free for everyone. For that

matter, it’s no more mysterious than the economics of

commercial TV, which is identical except that advertisers are

among the donors. There are many successful and sustainable

examples in our economy in which some people pay to make a

good free for everyone rather than pay only for their own

private access or consumption.

 

Q. Can you summarize for us the major developments and trends

in FOS?

 

A: Here are some trends in the FOS movement:

 

A growing number of disciplines have free online preprint

archives. Every discipline now has a growing number of free

online peer-reviewed journals. A growing number of

universities have free online archives for faculty research

papers. Journal publishers are experimenting with ways to

offer more of their content online, some of it free of

charge. They are also experimenting with different ways to

fund the costs of the online content. More journal publishers

are allowing authors to put their published papers online free

of charge e.g. on their own home pages. It is increasingly

common to see journal editors rebel against journal publishers

that refuse to lower subscription prices or widen online

access. They rebel by resigning and launching new journals on

the same topics and usually gather the same subscribers and a

superior “impact factor” very quickly. More scholars and

researchers are demanding that journals offer free online

access to their contents. The Public Library of Science open

letter has so far gathered more than 29,000 signatures from

175 countries. More online repositories of digital articles

are participating in the Open Archives Initiative, and more

scholars and task forces are endorsing it. It is the emerging

standard for making separate archives “interoperable” —for

example, searchable as if they were one. More serious,

feasible solutions are emerging to the problem of long-term

preservation of digital content. More journals and special

initiatives are seeking ways to provide developing countries

with free online access to scientific and scholarly

literature. More software tools exist to automate the

operation of online journals (hence, to keep costs low). Just

about all tasks can now be automated except editorial judgment

(which shouldn’t be, of course). More hiring and tenure

committees are giving weight to peer-reviewed publications

without regard to the medium of publication (print or

electronic). More journal publishers are seeking ways to

accommodate the scholarly demand for online access (though not

always to accommodate the demand for free online access). The

serials pricing crisis which has long alarmed and mobilized

librarians is starting to alarm and mobilize university

administrators and faculty. Copyright law is changing from a

balance between publishers and readers toward a severe

imbalance favoring publishers. (See next question below.)

 

The recent Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) is promising

for several reasons. It brings together FOS proponents from

many disciplines and nations, FOS initiatives from many

fronts, and foundations with serious resources to help advance

the cause. These foundations are led by George Soros’ Open

Society Institute, which convened the meeting that gave birth

to the BOAI.

 

One thing I like about the BOAI is its friendliness. It

doesn’t demand that journals or publishers join the cause or

face sanctions. It offers to help them make the transition if

they are willing to do so. But if they aren’t willing, it

simply says it will pursue the cause without their help. The

BOAI doesn’t demand any changes from publishers, markets, or

legislation, and doesn’t criticize anyone for not joining. It

articulates two strategies that scholars can pursue on their

own. One is self-archiving, by which scholars deposit their

papers in institutional or disciplinary archives. (These

archives are interoperable, or they cooperate with one

another, by virtue of their compliance with the standards of

the Open Archives Initiative.) The second is the launch of a

new generation of journals that are committed to making their

contents freely accessible online.

 

The long-term economic sustainability of free online

scholarship is not a problem. We know this because creating

open online access to this literature costs much less than

traditional forms of dissemination and much less than the

money currently spent on journal subscriptions. The only

problem is the transition from here to there. The BOAI is

especially promising because it understands this and mobilizes

the financial resources to help make the transition possible

for existing journals that would like to change their business

model, new journals that need to establish themselves, and

universities that don’t yet participate in self-archiving. In

this sense the BOAI is not just a statement of principles or

ideals, but a serious and effective plan to achieve this very

important public good.

 

Q. Copyright laws are being revamped the world over (but

mainly in the USA). What would be the impact of the likes of

the DMCA on scholarship and on the economics of publishing?

 

A. The DMCA has several harmful consequences for scholarship.

First, it prevents some scientists who happen to specialize in

encryption and data security from publishing their research.

Edward Felten of Princeton has so far been unable to get a

court to declare that he has a First Amendment right to

publish his research on certain methods of copy protection.

Taken at face value, the DMCA would punish Felten for

publishing his research. Until courts settle the question

whether the relevant sections of the DMCA are constitutional,

the free expression rights of scholars like Felten will be

chilled. And of course if the question is resolved in favor

of the DMCA, then the free expression rights of scholars like

Felten will be repealed. Second, it prevents some computer

scientists from publishing their research in the form of

source code, the technical language of their field. While

some courts have held that source code is protected as a kind

of speech, other courts are giving it a low level of

protection in order to give effect to DMCA prohibitions on

certain kinds of software. Third, it supports strong copy-protection schemes that deprive readers of their fair-use

rights. For the same reason, it deprives purchasers of

digital content of the right to bypass copy protection in

order to make personal back-up copies or to keep the content

readable when they move to a new computer. For the same

reason, it prevents libraries from taking necessary measures

to assure the long-term access and preservation of digital

literature. The DMCA is even worse for software developers and

consumers than it is for scholars. This week Felten dropped

his appeal. So currently no court is even considering his

question whether scholars have a First Amendment right to

publish their research, or whether the anti-circumvention

clause of the DMCA (which seems to prohibit Felten from

publishing) is unconstitutional.

 

Note that the FOS movement has no problem with the strong

protection of intellectual property, which is at the heart of

the DMCA. That’s not the problem. The problem is the way the

DMCA upsets a long-standing (and constitutionally mandated)

balance between publishers and readers and gives nearly

everything to publishers.

 

Because internet content crosses national boundaries, one

nation will often want to enforce the